new shoes

As part of our One Small Change for March, we have been trying to keep our spending local, as much as possible. We happen to live in a town that has become world-famous for having its own currency, which is awfully inspiring. We are very fortunate to have access to some wonderful traditional, local businesses, and it's so satisfying to know that rather than lining the pockets of some faceless corporation, we are instead helping to put food on one of our neighbour's tables.

This week we picked up Imogen's new handmade shoes from this shop. Although the shoes are twice as expensive as the popular high street brands, they are handmade, handfitted and built to last. Imogen wore her last pair for a year! Because they are handmade in the traditional way, the leather can be separated from the soles in order to be stretched. And they have said they'll be happy to re-fit the outgrown shoes to our next little girl's feet when the time comes. How's that for service and value-for-money?

Another benefit to buying local is that I can feel certain that these shoes were produced ethically. I can't bear to think of another little child halfway around the world in a factory, making shoes for my little children.

Other things we've been buying that are produced and/or sold locally include our veg, our dairy products and cards and paper products. This month we also managed to buy all our craft materials here in town, including fabric, buttons, wool and ribbon. And we visited our small local hardware store for the bits and bobs we needed to spruce up a corner of the garden, instead of travelling ten miles to the big DIY store in the next town. Although I suspect we paid a few pence more for our purchases, when you compare that to what we saved on petrol, I think we've still come out ahead.

For our April Change, we are planning to take our household further into the cloth realm. We already use cloth nappies and I've been using homemade mama cloth for about a year, so moving from paper towels and paper napkins to washable fabric alternatives makes good sense. Hmmm. I sense a raid on my fabric stash coming on....